This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
I'd say that there was a few decades there where people were 'made' to conform with the 'living constitution' interpretational theory.
So it apparently does work on some level.
Sure. And in years past this resulted in actual amendments being passed via the prescribed process. Women can vote now, Chattel slavery is outlawed, we have an income tax, and at one point alcohol was banned nationally.
Because it was, seemingly, agreed on that this was the proper approach to ensuring the document kept up with the culture of the nation.
I don't think there's anyone who thinks that the Constitution is unable to be changed or updated, but many object to this being done by judicial fiat without giving citizens the chance to have a voice in the process.
I really don't know what your point is, otherwise.
Either the Constitution is the solid foundation upon which the Union of states is supposed to operate, and should be treated with sufficient reverence by the institutions involved, or it is not, and we are not held together by anything but historical momentum and a bare sheen of national brotherhood arising from shared history.
Where do you derive your definition of "America" from?
No, people were made to conform with the views of people who used the 'living constitution' interpretational theory to justify their desired policy results. Seriously, go back and read a lot of the progressive decisions from the Warren court era - it's pure power in there. Why did Roe find a right to abortion? Because Harry Blackmun wanted to find one, process and interpretation be damned. Even retrospectively-sainted cases like Brown v. Board of Education don't hold up well if you look at them just as examples of judicial reasoning. Brown's whole rationale was based on social-scientific and psychological findings that segregation created "[a] sense of inferiority" which "affects the motivation of a child to learn," and therefore "[s]egregation with the sanction of law . . . has a tendency to [retard] the educational and mental development of negro children and to deprive them of some of the benefits they would receive in a racial[ly] integrated school system." That's not a legal reason; that's a policy choice.
You can't rely on turning policy and power questions in to legal and interpretational ones. You clearly have a view on how the country should be organized and run. Fine! But argue for the view on its own terms, on the objective level. Don't divert the argument into legalistic questions of interpretation - that's not going to get you the results you want, and will distract everyone from the actual debate and disagreement at issue.
Oh but citizens have had chances to have their voice heard! The fights between gilded age lassiez-faire capitalism and progressive-era "scientific management" were cultural and political fights that reshaped government without constitutional amendment. The New Deal was mostly a legislative and administrative plan, not a judicial one. Even the Great Society and the rise of the modern concept of anti-discrimination law was at least as much legislative as it was judicial in origin! The people keep electing legislatures who pass giant enabling acts, and Presidents who vow to make use of those powers through imperial bureaucracies!
Moreover, there's nothing that requires the courts to have the authority they currently wield; the Constitution is actually extremely vague about courts; and Congress has extreme power over what courts exist, what their competencies are (and, just as importantly, what they aren't), what causes of action exist, what remedies are available, etc. Even SCOTUS isn't immune from this; it took an act of Congress in the 1920s to give SCOTUS the ability to pick and choose what cases it takes. Similarly, the ability of the Court to pick particular policy questions out of the morass of any given lawsuit and only decide on them - the basis for the institution's current role - depends on legislative authorization.
Por que no los dos? The Constitution is a set of rules and a political compromise. It is also, along with the Declaration of Independence and Gettysburg Address, the holy text of the American civic religion. However, rules don't exist without people, who insist on being imperfect and quarrelsome things, to whom virtue comes uneasily if at all. Why should you, I, or anyone expect any set of rules, no matter how well designed, to hold a single shape against the efforts of centuries to game and twist them? What faith, civic or otherwise, can survive as long as the U.S.'s has without doctrinal drift and corruption amongst the hierarchy and/or laity? What political compromise has endured, unchanging, from the 1700's 'til today? It's not for nothing that there are all those quotes from the Founding Fathers sounding ominous warnings that the whole thing could fall apart:
"[O]ur Constitution is neither a self-actuating nor a self-correcting document. It requires the constant attention and devotion of all citizens. There is a story, often told, that upon exiting the Constitutional Convention Benjamin Franklin was approached by a group of citizens asking what sort of government the delegates had created. His answer was: 'A republic, if you can keep it.' The brevity of that response should not cause us to under-value its essential meaning: democratic republics are not merely founded upon the consent of the people, they are also absolutely dependent upon the active and informed involvement of the people for their continued good health."
"While our Country remains untainted with the Principles and manners, which are now producing desolation in so many Parts of the World: while she continues Sincere and incapable of insidious and impious Policy: We shall have the Strongest Reason to rejoice in the local destination assigned Us by Providence. But should the People of America, once become capable of that deep simulation towards one another and towards foreign nations, which assumes the Language of Justice and moderation while it is practicing Iniquity and Extravagance; and displays in the most captivating manner the charming Pictures of Candour, frankness & sincerity while it is rioting in rapine and Insolence: this Country will be the most miserable Habitation in the World. Because We have no Government armed with Power capable of contending with human Passions unbridled by morality and Religion. Avarice, Ambition and Revenge or Galantry, would break the strongest Cords of our Constitution as a Whale goes through a Net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious People. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other." - John Adams, To the Officers of the first Brigade of the third Division of the Militia of Massachusetts, October 11, 1798
". . .[T]here is no truth more thoroughly established, than that there exists in the economy and course of nature, an indissoluble union between virtue and happiness, between duty and advantage, between the genuine maxims of an honest and magnanimous policy, and the solid rewards of public prosperity and felicity: Since we ought to be no less persuaded that the propitious smiles of Heaven, can never be expected on a nation that disregards the eternal rules of order and right, which Heaven itself has ordained: And since the preservation of the sacred fire of liberty, and the destiny of the Republican model of Government, are justly considered as deeply, perhaps as finally staked, on the experiment entrusted to the hands of the American people." - George Washington, First Inaugural Address
No, we treat these things with reverance in no small part because of the historical momentum behind them. And we use them to forge national brotherhood from disparate peoples despite the lack of shared history. Whether the project is working or not is something for interested observers to judge for themselves. But we Americans have always been a fractious lot, so a modicum of historical perspective is suggested before drawing any conclusions that are too alarmist.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link